For many months the Algiers authorities displayed a disturbing impotence to cope with the O.A.S., despite the more than 25,000 gendarmes and C.R.S. available to them. The problems facing them were, admittedly, immense. In the larger part of Algiers and Oran the O.A.S. enjoyed the same advantages of being the “fish in water” among a sympathetic population that helped make the F.L.N. so elusive over the country as a whole. As with Yacef’s network in the Casbah before the Battle of Algiers, the adjacent poor white district of Bab-el-Oued now became a virtually impenetrable citadel for the O.A.S. There was also a worrisome question of loyalties. Following the collapse of the April putsch, General Ailleret estimated that — while ten per cent of his officers were prepared to fight against the O.A.S. — ten per cent were actively favourable to it, and the remaining eighty per cent neutral and unlikely to obey orders to fire upon the army deserters with the O.A.S.

XREF: Parallels the 'fish in water' dynamics of insurgent urban networks elsewhere, notably the FLN's Casbah network.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1491